Koestenbaum is the author of several collections of poetry, including Blue Stranger with Mosaic Background (2012), Best-Selling Jewish Porn Films (2006), The Milk of Inquiry (1999), and Ode to Anna Moffo and Other Poems (1990), which was named one of the Village Voice Literary Supplement’s Favorite Books of the Year.

His prose works include Humiliation (2011); Hotel Theory (2007); the novel Moira Orfei in Aigues-Mortes (2004); Cleavage: Essays on Sex, Stars, and Aesthetics (2000); and National Book Critics Circle Award–nominated The Queen’s Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire (1993).

The White Swallow, a queerish reading series in Manhattan’s West Village, features emerging and established poets and fiction writers. Hosted monthly by Angelo Nikolopoulos.